Antonin
by Sachita
Summary: In a way, Antonin Dolohov reflects, all that he has ever done has been for Tom- and not because of misplaced feeling of love, but because Tom had always been the only one to be honest to him.


_Hi everyone! Antonin Dolohov as a character has featured heavily in another story of mine, and I felt the need to do a character study of him. The result is slightly odd, but see for yourself. This is not slash of any kind, though it might sound that way sometimes. Anyway...this is probably one of the oddest pieces I have ever written, but I hope you like it nonetheless. Please leave me a review and tell me your thoughts :) Sachita_

_Disclaimer: Harry Potter is owned by J.K. Rowling. No copyright infringement intended._

* * *

><p><strong>Antonin<strong>

* * *

><p>Antonin Dolohov had always been one to appreciate honesty.<p>

Honesty and London were for him two interchangeable terms, for London, London is for him a day in late autumn, when he was sitting on a park bench in Hampstead Heath and watched twilight falling over the city.

It was 1946 and the Second World War was barely over, though new conflicts were already present on the horizon.

Tensions were starting to show between the two superpowers USA and Soviet Union, but the second storm was starting to brew in the wizard world. However, the latter did not know of it yet, Antonin thought and watched his companion, who was sitting next to him on the bench and whose deep blue eyes were alight with an ominous gleam as he presented his visions to Antonin.

"…Muggles don't deserve better. I postulate that they are actually inferior to us, both in spirit and in their talents…"

Antonin nodded slowly, tapped his toes- once, twice- nodded again. The other did not even take notice of him, caught up in his visions as he was. He presented them with wide, sweeping gestures and gleaming eyes. Antonin looked silently at him: the determined line of his mouth, the slender, blue-veined hands that gesticulated wildly, the black hair that had been tousled by the autumn winds and the feverish red cheeks.

He allowed himself a small smile. "Try to rein yourself in, Tom."

Anger at having been interrupted showed shortly on Tom's face, but then he smiled slightly, as if he was thinking of a joke that only he could understand.

"Very well, Antonin," he said, still smiling faintly. "I can see that I talk too much. A walk will maybe make it possible for you to think about what I said."

Antonin knew of course that Tom was implicating that he should definitely think about what had been said. Being a Slytherin meant to gather more meaning from words that had not actually been said than anything else. They walked in silence, each lost in their own thoughts.

Tom had put a small-brimmed black hat on his head- maybe to look older, Antonin thought, quietly amused. He knew better than to say it out loud though, since he knew of Tom's volatile temper. They were young though, so young- barely finished with school a year prior- eighteen years old and looking at life in their own way.

They were not actually looking forward to life though, neither of them was, and Antonin knew it. Both Tom and him had lived a thousand lives already, each harder and fuller of deprivation than the other. Between the two of them, they knew what it was like to sleep in cold, high rooms underneath holey blankets and what it was like to wear shoes that did a poor job of protecting their feet for they were too threadbare. Maybe that was what drew them to one another, Antonin thought, though he sometimes also thought that he was the only one to need Tom and Tom had no need of his presence at all.

"Don't sell yourself short," Tom commented wryly, his voice almost lost in the crinkling of the autumn leaves under their boots.

"I hate it when you do that," Antonin growled, though his hand was clenching to a fist in his coat pocket, as he wondered whether he might have gone too far.

Tom remained silent, however, although he smiled in that vague way of his that had always been a source of discomfort for Antonin.

They stopped on a small hillock and looked in silence at the long, glittering river that waited like a sated, giant serpent in the afternoon sun for the evening to come. Alarmed, Antonin registered that this thought had not been his own. In the same moment he felt how a foreign presence laughed out loud in his mind and then retreated. When he winced and backed away, he looked directly in Tom's dark blue eyes. "You!" he exclaimed in shock and anger.

Tom lifted an elegant black eyebrow and then turned away, as if nothing had happened.

"Who is Masha?"

Masha, Masha…Russia in late summertime, the scent of dry hay. A wide smile on a face framed by wheat-coloured hair and covered with a wealth of freckles. A sense of security….Mother.

The reply came unbidden, unasked-for and Tom did not even give Antonin the chance to say it out loud. "Your mother, Antonin? How did she die?"

Startled, Antonin was far too surprised to reply. Tom's subsequent look held some derision. "Oh please, Dolohov. Your memories of her, no matter whether they are happy or not, are always tainted with that poison Muggles call _wistfulness_. So, how did she die?"

Antonin felt this anger that had always been part of him come to the forefront of his mind again.

"Muggles," he said dully.

Tom nodded as if he had already known what Antonin would say and maybe he had. "Revenge," he said quietly and flames of madness danced through his blue eyes. "Revenge," he repeated and the word seemed to reverberate through Antonin's entire being.

Such passion- such honesty.

He did not have to think about it for long before he pledged allegiance to Tom.

* * *

><p>Years later, on the day of his hearing, Antonin Dolohov was asked why he had joined the Death Eaters.<p>

"Probably due to a troubled family history," the judge surmised. For some reason she was quite partial to Antonin. Antonin shook his head, laughed, marvelled at the fact that she was wrong, although she did seem to be right.

"Glory."

Again he laughed, shook his head.

"Bloodlust."

A horrified shudder went through the rows of the Ministry officials. Antonin put his dark head to one side, and then shook his head, baring his teeth. "No."

"Why did you join them then ?"

Dumbledore, and for a moment Antonin remembered an admittedly rather mean prank Tom and him had once played on the Professor during their school days. Tom had laughed breathlessly, the one and only time Antonin had ever heard him laugh like that.

He looked directly at Dumbledore. "Honesty."

"Honesty?" one of the officials gasped disbelievingly.

Yes, honesty, Antonin thought defiantly. Tom had been a lot more honest than what the wizard world had offered him after his mother's death: "_Well, boy, we will put you in an orphanage. You mustn't blame the Muggles for your Mother's death. It could have just as well been a wizard, who killed her…"_

Tom had been honest, had given Antonin the chance to stay true to himself.

Antonin Dolohov had always appreciated honesty.

For a fraction of a second he hesitated, but then he lifted his head again and looked at Dumbledore.

"I did it because of him."

Excited whispers from the Ministry officials, but Dumbledore bowed his head and looked firmly at Antonin. "Did you love him ?"

Antonin thought of Tom in London's late autumn light, pale and passionate and beautiful like a painting, and he lowered his eyes. "Not like that."

There was a sigh in Dumbledore's voice as he replied: "There is more than one kind of love, Mr. Dolohov."

"If you say so," Antonin smirked and he had closed his mind to Dumbledore again. He thought of Tom and Tom's blue eyes and long pale hands and of that damned honesty, but Tom was dead and nothing mattered anymore, and as such he laughed and laughed and laughed- barely heard the verdict "guilty"- was led away, brought to the dementors' lair, screamed his mind to the heavens, but sat on the window sill in the evenings and watched the star-spangled midnight blue with sunken-in eyes that held the same madness like Tom's on that autumn day in London.

Briefly, he thought of his mother, Masha, and the way she'd be horrified if she heard that he had done all what he had done in her name. But then he could reassure her, he amended, for maybe Dumbledore had been right and he loved Tom, although not like that.

When the dementors returned on that evening, Antonin screamed himself hoarse, but if he had been asked whether he regretted his existence, he would have replied negatively. Antonin Dolohov had always appreciated honesty- and oh the irony, that he should have found it in the man, who was dishonest even to himself.

On that evening the moon shone brightly into the prison cell and the night was blue like Tom's eyes and Antonin saw it and smiled and slept.

* * *

><p><em>Fin<em>


End file.
